by Catrin Fflur Huws

Alan Turing

Why was Turing Important?

Following the centenary year of his birth, and the release of the film Imitation Game, Alan Turing’s name has become more familiar to most people. They may not be exactly sure why he is famous – they may have some idea about “cracking codes in the War” or “something to with the first computers”, or even that he was the victim of homophobia, but they have no real idea exactly why he is held in such high regard by computer scientists in particular.

The answer is simple: he invented computer science. He didn’t invent computers, by any means; but he was the first person to talk about – to rigorously define, in mathematical terms – what it means to compute something. And by doing that, he allowed us to scientifically study computation: to work out how to make better, faster computers and programs; to find out what sorts of problems are easy or hard to solve, and why; to work out what can and cannot be computed. He also looked at what computers might be able to do in the future, like a conversation, or understand how a plant grows.

The collection of short essays is based upon an event put on by British Computer Science Mid Wales, in which talks were given describing Turing’s work and how it has influenced computing. These are some of the short articles based in the talks to give you a taste of the science behind the story.